A federal appeals court will allow the American Civil Liberties Union to proceed with a lawsuit claiming a Boeing unit assisted the Central Intelligence Agency in secretly taking suspect foreigners to overseas prisons for torture, the ACLU said on Tuesday.

The ruling by the US District Court California Northern District reverses a lower court decision throwing out the case against Jeppesen DataPlan, which provides flight and logistics support to plane operators.

The ACLU originally filed the lawsuit brought on behalf of five men whom the ACLU says were "kidnapped, forcibly disappeared and secretly transferred to US-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas where they were interrogated under torture."

A Jeppesen spokesman said the company was reviewing the decision but that it was not prepared to comment.

Washington has acknowledged the secret transfer of suspects to third countries but denies torturing them or handing them over to countries that did.

"The extraordinary rendition program is well known throughout the world," said Steven Watt, a staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program, in a statement. "The only place it hasn't been discussed is where it most cries out for examination -- in a US court of law."